The Meaning and Measurements of Health

 A PowerPoint Presentation on:

 

“The Meaning and Measurement of Health”

 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ncLTj4eeYcCX43zI1IaD8AQqpo8jK_jT/edit#slide=id.p1

 

It was one of the several dozens of talks on health, medicine, its advances, and on other scientific and non-scientific subjects given by this author through invitations to various academic, scientific, and professional societies, and to charitable associations over the last 25 years after retirement from medical research as a Senior Medical Research Officer at the Institute for Medical Research, Malaysia from 1968 – 1994

 

 

 

Can Life in Other Worlds Exist Without Water?

Scientists always believe that in order for life to exist, water is probably the most important ingredient needed.

 

We know that in order for us, animals, plants, and microorganisms to survive and flourish on this planet water is the key ingredient for life and for them to first evolve from the primordial oceans.

 

Astronomers and astrobiologists have been searching for life in our galaxy for evidence of life on other planets. They have been looking for water first, and other life-giving chemicals such as carbon and amino-acids among the planets as prerequisites for life to be possible in their space probes. But are these the chemical criteria for life to be possible or rather for physical forms of life to be possible?

 

According to Dr Anne Jungblut, a specialist in life living in extreme conditions, and Dr Paul Kenrick, a specialist on the early evolution of life, explain what they were looking for.

 

According to them as well as to all scientists, the processes to make life possible, there must be life-giving chemicals and water for chemical reactions to take place in a living body, and for water to break down those substances so these reactions can move and interact freely.

 

Liquid water is probably the only essential requirement for life on Earth because it functions as a solvent. It is efficient in dissolving substances to enable these biochemical reactions to take place in animals, plants and in the microbial cells.

 

The chemical and physical properties of water is to allow it to dissolve more substances than other liquids, as water is a universal solvent for most chemicals.  Other physical characteristics of water essential for life are its heat conducting ability, high boiling and melting points, and its capability to allow life-giving light to penetrate.

 

According to another scientist, he says 'As water plays such an essential role in life on Earth, the presence of water has been vital in the search of other habitable planets and moons'.

 

Many thousands of biomolecules are involved in the reactions with water for complex life to be made possible. Carbon-based life is only possible in the presence of water for the synthesis of proteins, carbohydrates and fats that make up life. Hence, we conclude that physical life as we know it here on Earth is only possible in the presence of water.

 

The molecular structure of carbon allows its atoms to form long chains, with each other with two potential free bonds to join up with other atoms especially with oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen to make life organic compounds very complex.

 

Many of these free bonds in carbon can even join up with other carbon atoms to form complex rings and 3D molecular structures. These carbon bonds are strong and stable for building life-giving structures since carbon along with water are the most abundant substance on Earth on which all life is made possible. Hence, we assume that this hypothesis holds true for the entire Universe where life exists, or does it?

 

Although carbon is possibly the main component of organic compounds on which all life is based, other elements such as nitrogen on which complex proteins are based are also required for smaller units called amino acids. The synthesis of DNA and RNA, the carriers of the genetic code for life on Earth also requires nitrogen, not just water or carbon.

 

Microorganisms like bacteria convert nitrogen from the atmosphere into nitrogen compounds such as nitrates that is also essential for plants as nitrates are needed for their protein synthesis

 

Besides water and nitrogen, phosphorus is also essential for life as the element is needed for the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the compound that drives the biochemical power and machinery of life.

Energy-rich phosphate bond in ATP is converted into ADP (adenosine diphosphate) in anaerobic respiration to yield energy to be converted back into ATP in the presence of oxygen.

ATP is a nucleoside triphosphate, containing a nitrogenous base (adenine), a ribose sugar, and three serially bonded phosphate groups. ATP is often referred to as an "energy currency" of the cell that provides readily releasable energy in the bond between the second and third phosphate groups.

 

In addition to its source of cellular energy, the breakdown of ATP through hydrolysis provides a broad spectrum of cellular functions such as in cellular signalling and in DNA/RNA synthesis. ATP synthesis utilizes energy from multiple catabolic mechanisms, including cellular respiration, beta-oxidation, and ketosis.

 

This may be true in cellular chemistry where water is needed to drive the chemical reactions, but water is not needed in the life forces themselves existing in a living body that drive these biochemical reactions. In short, it is the life forces that are the master command to these chemistries of life, and life itself. 

Phosphorus is also another vibrant element in cell membranes that regulates the flow of substances in and out of cells besides being part of the DNA and RNA.

 

Besides water, carbon, nitrogen, sulphur that makes up the enzyme, hormones and vitamins is also essential for life. However, in the absence of oxygen and light, it is also possible to use sulphur as an energy source. Some bacteria called extremophiles can live without light and oxygen under severe environmental conditions such as in hydrothermal vents on ocean floors, frozen lakes, areas with high salinity and even in areas with high radio activities.

 

The question we need to ask is, if some of these life forms found here on Earth living under extreme conditions, would it be possible for other physical life forms found living under extreme conditions in other planets and other extra-terrestrial worlds?

  

Life on Earth took at least 4 billion years to evolve from single-celled organisms to complex life as we now know them. The age of the universe is 13.8 billion years, and the age of Earth is 4.543 billion years. The accretion of Earth took place 4,500 to 4,400 million years ago, after the atmosphere and oceans were formed 4,200 million years ago. It was only when the oceans where there was water, life became possible in the form of the first prebiotic chemistry.  That was 4,000 million years ago. Life was not possible in its earliest stages of Earth’s formation as it was too hot then.

 

The entire scenario of from the creation of the Universe till the early agriculture 12,000 years ago till the use of iron tools by humans is given here:

 

Creation of Heavens and the Universe:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=age+of+universe

 

It is possible that life exists on other planets but such life would have a lot of evolutionary process to catch up. It took complex life so long to form due to its complex genetic and biochemical systems.  Microorganisms with simple cells have to evolve first. According to one scientist, he says:

 

'To make tissues and organs, cells need to multiply, specialise in function, and co-operate. The evolution of these basic building blocks and their integration took time. Larger organisms require even more specialised and integrated cellular systems. The fossil record tells us that this took billions of years.' 

 

Having explained all that, especially the presence of water as the first requirement, scientists always assume that life elsewhere in the Universe is also the same as we know them here on Earth. So, they came up with the hypothesis that life in other worlds is only possible within the Goldilocks Zone, meaning a planet has to be like Earth to be just right from its Sun or their star from a distance that is not too hot, or not too cold for liquid water to exist on its surface?

 

Astronomers have been searching for planets within this hypothesis in the Goldilocks’s Zone for ages without success for the existence of (physical) life there. Not just light at the right distance, but also light and radiation of certain wavelengths that does not damage the DNA of life there. Here on Earth damaging ultraviolet light for instance from the Sun is screened off by the ozone. So, astronomers need to look for those other life-damaging conditions too, not just water, light and the right temperature.

 

Now the question that is troubling me as a scientist myself who is trained and familiar in astronomy, astrobiology, evolution of life on Earth, biology and zoology, medicine and other fields of life sciences, I have always asked myself, is it necessary that life has to be in the physical form to meet all these criteria for its existence throughout the Universe or at least in other nearby worlds that other scientists have been vainly trying in their Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) with their radio telescopes.

 

Frank Drake and his colleagues in 1961 even came out with unreliable guesses to look for life in other worlds using his equation that looks like this:

 

• R_∗ = 1 yr⁻¹ (1 star formed per year, on the average over the life of the galaxy; this was regarded as conservative)
• f_p = 0.2 to 0.5 (one fifth to one half of all stars formed will have planets)
• n_e = 1 to 5 (stars with planets will have between 1 and 5 planets capable of developing life)
• f_l = 1 (100% of these planets will develop life)
• f_i = 1 (100% of which will develop intelligent life)
• f_c = 0.1 to 0.2 (10–20% of which will be able to communicate)
• L = 1000 to 100,000,000 communicative civilizations (which will last somewhere between 1000 and 100,000,000 years)

Inserting the above minimum numbers into the equation gives a minimum N of 20 Inserting the maximum numbers gives a maximum of 50,000,000. Drake states that given the uncertainties, the original meeting concluded that N ≈ L, and there were probably between 1000 and 100,000,000 planets with civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy.

 

They assume all life elsewhere must satisfy all the same criteria for life as we know them here in this physical world, or is it?

 

The question that troubles me for a long time is, what about life that has no physical body but just pure life such as spiritual life existing and residing inside a physical body that does not require water such as a soul that leaves the physical body on death? If they exist, I don’t think such pure life tagged or trapped inside a physical body requires any water to exist. But that’s life to me, not a physical living body

 

See my arguments among others on this here:  

 

Read also the “The Mystery of Life”:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=mystery+of+life

 

The Spark of Life:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=spark+of+life

 

Jesus First Miracle:

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=jesus+first+miracle

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=does+soul+exist

 

We often read accounts of UFOs, presuming beings from other worlds visiting Earth. If they exist with strong possibilities they do from numerous reports of their sightings all over the world seen by people with different belief systems, religion, cultures, ethnicities, ages and genders. How did these “living beings” from other worlds travel vast chasms of interstellar spaces, distances of tens, hundreds or thousands of light years between stars to undertake those horrendously long journeys without food and water as we know them to arrive here on Earth? What about them?

 

If they are living creatures from other worlds, don’t they also require food and water during their unspeakably long journey between the stars? Yet they managed to arrive here without water or food in deep interstellar space. Give this a thought as I do.   

 

Furthermore, when all life on Earth is destroyed and a new heaven and a new Earth is created with non-physical life existing there. It says there is “no more sea”, meaning there is no more water needed for spiritual life there as in Revelation 21:1?

 

But our life and all life on Earth is physical that requires water as already explained above. Give this also another thought. It troubles me greatly unlike other scientists and the common man-in-the-street who only believes what scientists tell them. 

In summary, I don't think it is safe to assume that everything that happens or exists we know here in this world, applies to other worlds too, even in the nearest ones in the Milky Way Galaxy, let alone in the entire Universe spanning 93 billion light years across. 

For instance, we can easily calculate and measure the amount of energy output of the Sun, measure the distances to the stars using various methods such as measuring its parallax, using Cepheids variables, by observing the length  of their period and intrinsic luminosity, and use simple physics to calculate their distances. 

Astronomers can even tell the evolution and ages of the main sequence stars by looking at their luminosity in the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram.  As they grow older, their luminosity increases, and by knowing their mass, and their increase in luminosity we can tell  the ages of younger and older stars. 

We can tell a lot about the Universe, their origin and ultimate fate, how they work, their age, size, numbers of galaxies, make estimates of the number of stars in each galaxy...a 1000 and one thing we know, but we have not a clue if life even in their simplest form exist elsewhere other than our own. 

We don't even have an acceptable definition for life despite over 100 definations being offered, let alone measure it. If we are so blind in knowing exactly what makes some organic molecules almost suddenly come alive, or tell ourselves exactly how life originated, how they were created, designed, or spontaneously elvolved, then how are we going to know if other life elsewhere requires water in such horrendously vast cosmic oceans containing an estimated 10 trillion, trillion (1 followed by 25 zeros)? 

We can only give ourselves a very deep thought on the mysteries of life!

jb lim    

Further Question Being Asked if a Soul Exist in All Living Things

 

Four people from two different WhatsApp chat groups over the last five weeks have again asked me the same question if a soul exist despite me having explained this riddle briefly twice, and have somewhat detailed it in writing here:

 

Does Soul Exist? under a broader discussion here:

 

Does A Human Soul Travel Faster than the Speed of Light?

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=soul

I have added an addition answer to the above summarized here:

 

The best way to answer this question as any rational thinking scientist would is this. Imagine a person was alive at one moment, and he suddenly dies either due to a cardiac arrest, a sudden accident, or a slow lingering death from a chronic incurable disease. The next question any scientific mind would ask is this. Where did that life go? He / she was clearly alive and living moments ago, a week, a month or a year ago, but he was no longer alive or living anymore. Where did he go? What was 'that something' living inside his / her body one moment then suddenly left him / her leaving only his physical body. There must be something 'living inside' his physical body that made him or her breathe, move and was conscious. Then what happened? Why was he / her unable to show those characteristics of something that was alive and living anymore? There must be 'something' there inside him / her that has left him that made his entire chemistry of life no longer able to proceed by themselves to show all those characteristics of life or something living? 

 

This is not just very rational scientific thinking and questioning by any right-thinking man or woman of science, but all ancient civilizations and cultures throughout the world in their wisdom do the same. All these civilizations even before rational scientific thinking was evolved already believed and accepted that a soul exists, else no physical body by itself can become alive, live for a few years and leave him / her. This phenomenon apples not just to humans or only for human souls, but for anything that creeps, breathes, feeds and multiples itself automatically  
 

The Persistence of Memories After Death?

 Just this afternoon a few hours ago, I was at a nearby shop looking at some fruits to buy when I have the good fortune of overhearing two sweet and charming elderly ladies, one a Malay, the other a Chinese, both probably in their early 70’s standing beside me, the Chinese lady telling the other about her husband past life.

 

Initially I thought she was talking about another lady in her hubby’s life. As her story drifted minutes later, it was apparent she was talking about her husband's previous life in this world where he could recall memories of who he was. Naturally such a subject interests me greatly. I remained silently listening, the Chinese lady telling how her husband could describe places he has never been and have met people who have since died centuries before he was born. He seemed to have very vivid recollections of past history and events though he was not very educated. Uncannily, some two weeks earlier I have thought of such possibilities.   

 

But before I write further, let me tell you what my parents told me when I was a boy in school. They advised me to study hard to secure a future for myself, and that whatever I learn shall remain with me forever, and that no one can steal that knowledge and information from my body I gained by studying hard even if I die.

 

They explained that money and wealth can be stolen and used up at any time, and taken away from us on death, but not those valuable information through education, the knowledge gained and memories of our life experiences. They remain in our brains or bodies forever.   

 

Of course, I turned a deaf ear to their “fairy tales” and went my way as usual as all children do, playing tops, kites, catching small crabs in the mud and fish in the drains, not to mention fighting spiders. Naturally engaging in these activities did not help me do well in school.

 

In fact, I couldn’t even be bothered with studies. I only wanted to be a clerk, a general worker or just a teacher on leaving school. I have no confidence in getting even a simple school certificate to earn just a few dollars. I could never understand why my parents told me these “fairy tales” that knowledge and memories remain with us permanently as wealth when we study diligently till death, unlike money and wealth that can be stolen and left behind. It was not until I had the good fortune to enter a university that I began to understand a little better and took my study more seriously.  

 

Those two charming ladies I accidentally met jolted the memories my parents told me decades earlier – truly were reminiscences that had not faded, especially those nostalgic experiences that flashed back like someone searching out some very old previous information stored in a computer years and years earlier.

 

Having said that, let me now explain very briefly in the simplest language how we store memories of events we experienced, information and knowledge we learnt and stored in schools and universities years ago.  

 

Neuroscientists have mapped out three areas of the brain where memories are stored. They are the hippocampus, the neo-cortex and the amygdala. Our memories are inextricably associated with our individualities, memoirs of our childhood, our school and college days, our working experiences, our marriage days, remembrances of bringing up children and our reminiscences and experiences with them…all down memory lane till we retire and even till very old age.

 

Memories may be fleeting and short-term, and others ever-lasting till death. These are explicit memories we can consciously recall. Explicit memories can be episodic relating to an experience or, they may be semantic, meaning remembering facts and information we gained through education and learning. These memories are stored in some 90 – 120 billion neurons in the brain, depending on how intelligent we are, like a computer storing loads and loads of data in its memory banks that are easily recalled instantly at the tap of a few fingers on the keyboard. Explicit memories are affected by neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, but stored knowledge may be less so.

 

Scientists think that long-term episodic memories of specific events are stored outside the hippocampus. They believe these recalls are stored in the neocortex, the part of the brain that are also responsible for cognitive functions such as attention and planning. Most people can remember events they experienced decades ago. However, as they get older, dementia and memory loss may or may not manifest itself. For instance, Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia. Even though dementia affects more commonly among older individuals, it is not a part of normal aging.

 

Nonetheless, there are conditions resulting in total loss of memory (amnesia). There again there are many types of amnesia such as retrograde amnesia where there is loss of existing memories, anterograde amnesia, transient global amnesia, dissociative amnesia, post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) and even amnesia induced by drugs. PTA for instance may be temporary after a period of unconsciousness, such as due to a cardiac arrest.

 

In a cardiac arrest which is different from a heart attack or an angina-on-effort, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) followed by defibrillation needs to be instituted immediately to re-establish blood and oxygen perfusion into the brain within 5 minutes before permanent brain damage begins to set in, principally cessation of cerebral cortical function, depending on factors like body temperature, oxygen & blood sugar levels at time of the arrest.

 

Actual brain death, with loss of lower functions, may take longer. Memory may be lost on total brain death. That said in a nutshell let’s look at events less understood  

 

So far, we are talking about medical events from the medical-scientific point of view. What we do not quite know is, whether or not all the memories stored in our brain throughout our lifetime have a “backup” to be transferred into our unseen soul similar to all those files and documents stored in a computer being transferred and stored into a massive gigabit thumb drive or into another hard disk of another computer before an old and aging computer begins to fail and thrown away.

 

The rest of a computer hardware (physical body), may be destroyed or damaged, but the software (liken a soul) may still be there and functionable unless deleted and burned. This is the question I ask myself.

 

Let us now look at science. Science is a systematic study of matter and energy where scientists can derive data as evidence (evidence-based data) through observation and experimentation. We call this as empirical evidence. This holds true for all physical observations in this physical world of ours. What we can see, feel, touch and be able to measure with our instruments we know is real and they exist. We may even make an indirect inference through a set of theories and hypotheses such as in theoretical and particle physics using the “Standard Model” based on what we already know as springboards. We can then extrapolate new findings theoretically using mathematical models in ways we cannot see or measure by experimentation.

 

However, this hypothesis can be much more complicated when we attempt to apply them in life sciences where, in the first place we cannot even define life in an acceptable way, let alone know what is it that causes something living to crawl, breathe, feeds and reproduces by itself, respond to a stimulus, among other definitions prescribed by the acronyms MRS GREN (Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition).

 

The disturbing question I asked myself over the last two weeks before I met these two charming ladies today, one telling the other about her husband's past life. Our question is, do we die and live again like Jesus, and if we do, are we able to recall some of the memories of our previous life?

 

Are our souls able to copy and remember every bit of our life experiences here in this world before we die a physical death, and carry with them as evidence of our doings here to the next world, or back again to this world upon reincarnation – the recycle of life and death events.

 

This is likened to a temporary RAM or a more permanent hard disk of a computer containing all the files, documents and previous photos being transferred into a new hard disk inside a new computer with a new casing (body)? That’s what I want to know  

 

As a former research scientist myself, I am very obsessed with data, especially mathematics and statistics being my pet subjects as the queen of sciences. So, scientists may demand us showing evidence through experimentation and data? But how do we experiment and carry out measurements on spiritual entities that are not material and physical?

 

Science depends on evidence-based data, and these data can only be derived by measurements into units as in nanogram, milligram, gm, kg, meters, km, speed and time, direction, energy as Joules, watts, calories, or as Newtons for forces…etc. But there are also areas of existence in science such as health, life, soul, spirit and entities existing in the spiritual world that are unseen and beyond scientific measurement.

 

For instance, we know, and can clearly feel health and life exist, but as scientists we have no way of measuring either health or life.

 

They are unmeasurable entities, till even such an authoritative world body like the World Health Organization with all their elite experts and their expertise there could only define health in its Constitution as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

 

See this powerpoint presentation on meaning of health here:

 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ncLTj4eeYcCX43zI1IaD8AQqpo8jK_jT/edit#slide=id.p2

(If you are unable to click or access to the above site, just copy it and paste into Google search, and click there)

 

WHO has never attempted to measure health using any instrument. How would it be possible to measure physical, mental, and social well-being using any scientific instrument even though we know optimal health exists only in a few individuals in a population. Not all are endowed and bestowed with optimal qualities of life for sure.

 

If we cannot measure health, then how are we going to measure life, into “units of life” such as expressing them in milligram, Joules or in Newton for “life force” whatever, let alone measure or just detect the presence of a soul in a living body?

 

Yet most people believe, if not totally know if a soul exists from the behaviour of something living inside a body, including all living creatures, and living plants too.

 

Some like myself are convinced these forces exist, and they are a master force that controls the chemistries of life from the way they tick specific signalling pathways without interfering with each other’s chemical corridors. Fascinating!

 

Read the answer to this question, and also does a soul exist here:

 

A Spiritual-Scientific Poser: How Can Life Rise Again from Ashes, Someone Asked?

 

 https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/

 

The Body and Soul

 

Scientific Logic: Search results for dna as soul

 

Does a soul exist? Under “Does A Human Soul Travel Faster than the Speed of Light?”

 

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2021/10/article-was-originally-meant-for-our_59.html

 

Having asked myself these very disturbing questions, allow me now to show you what others scientists have to say, and those who died, only to return to tell their stories of their past memories

 

A replay of life: What happens in our brain when we die?

 

https://blog.frontiersin.org/2022/02/22/what-happens-in-our-brain-when-we-die/

 

Life after death: Study finds thousands who remember 'past life' and details of death:

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1206328/Life-after-death-study-memories-past-life-what-happens-after-dearth-proof-of-afterlife

Do memories survive after death? - The Sunday Guardian Live

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/memories-survive-death

 

Advice to parents of children who are Spontaneously Recalling Past Life Memories

 

https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/resources/advice-to-parents-of-children-who-are-spontaneously-recalling-past-life-memories/

 

Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives.

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1206328/Life-after-death-study-memories-past-life-what-happens-after-dearth-proof-of-afterlife

 

Let’s see what the Bible has to say here. But I am unsure if that was what was meant in the Bible interpreted by others? I leave this to your good judgement.

 

When we go to heaven will we remember our life on Earth?

 

https://www.versebyverseministry.org/bible-answers/when-we-go-to-heaven-will-we-remember-our-life-on-earth

 

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them”.

 

(Rev. 21:3)

“and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

 

(Rev. 21:4)

 

“Perhaps we will remember past disappointments without sorrow. Nevertheless, we can say that though memories persist into Heaven, sadness and mourning do not” (quote).

 

Sometimes I wonder if life, whether a plant or an animal scientists thought have gone extinct long ago resurfaced again could be their same soul re-joining the soil millions of years or centuries later to make their surprise appearances once again, and if they do, they remember their same form and structure when they were first created (not evolved as scientists believe) with their DNA being copied and remembered as they were millions of years ago like the transfer of all the files, photos and data from an discarded computer to a new one years later without any addition or deletion into the new memory disk. 

I strongly believe everything we see, think, write, say or do in our lives are already copied and duplicated instantly into our souls long, long before we die just like what I think right now is already written out and transferred into my mobile phone and stored there 

 

Here are just two examples of ancient life – one a fish, the other a plant that sprung back to life from their ‘graves’
 

The Coelacanth – The Fish That Came Back from Extinction

 

https://britishseafishing.co.uk/the-coelacanth-the-fish-that-came-back-from-extinction/#:~:text=The%20coelacanth%20was%20thought%20extinct%20but%20was%20rediscovered%20in%201938.

 

Ancient ‘miracle plant,’ believed extinct, said rediscovered in Turkey

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/miracle-plant-thought-to-be-extinct-claimed-to-have-been-rediscovered-in-turkey/#:~:text=Referred%20to%20as%20silphion%2C%20the,Nero%20some%202%2C000%20years%20ago.

 

I credit this information about this plant - silphion or silphium recently sent to me by Ms. Violet Ho, a school friend of mine

 

Give this a thought even if we are scientists who are obsessed by the rules and regulations and those “fixed laws” of science!  

 

Lim ju boo